The Psychedelic Experience - Mind Field S2 (Ep 2)

The following episode documents the use of

psychedelic

drugs that are illegal in the United States and other countries, although valuable scientific data can be obtained in controlled studies. We do not recommend the use of these substances. This is Iquitos Peru, the largest city in the world accessible by road. The only way in and out is by air or by river, the Amazon River. I'm about to head up the Amazon to a remote jungle retreat called Refugio altiplano, the refuge on the upper plane there, meeting local shamans to drink an ancient

psychedelic

. ayahuasca drug ayahuasca contains dimethyltryptamine DMT a molecule with a very similar shape to serotonin a neurotransmitter in our brain ingesting ayahuasca and flooding the brain with DMT leads to what many describe as spiritual

experience

s strong and vivid visions a sense of oneness with the universe even a sense of oneself dying but mystical magical language like that doesn't really seem relevant to scientific research;

It could often scare away those who are scientifically

mind

ed; However, understanding the human

mind

is not complete unless you consider everything the brain is capable of. What does it mean to feel? one with the universe why should our brains be able to feel such a feeling? This isn't about having fun or taking risks or doing something extreme. I want to learn what my mind is capable of. I'm about to embark on a journey. Psychedelics are chemicals that are structurally similar to the neurotransmitters our brains already use. When we ingest them, they bind to receptors and alter cognition and perception in ways we are still trying to understand.

When many people think of psychedelics, they think of social norm-challengers and recreational thrill-seekers, but it only addresses a particularly narrow slice of human history and culture, the fossil records, cave drawings, and archaeological excavations have provided evidence that humans have been using psychedelic compounds for thousands of years and by used I don't just mean in the dripping feeling stereotype, for example among the indigenous people of the Amazon rainforest, psychedelics were and in many places They are still a normal, common and totally conventional

experience

, as a member of these groups, who believe that psychedelics can heal, provide visions of the future and connect you with deities.

It's not a strange or new age idea, that's just the way it is, but when psychedelics became associated with certain countercultural movements, the United States banned research on them in 1970, most other countries followed suit soon after, but Since then, human testing has practically disappeared, but only recently. Restrictions have begun to relax and some researchers have begun investigating these substances and what some have described as Psychedelic Renaissance research. Universities are conducting extensive studies on the beneficial effects of psychedelics on addiction, depression, and cancer-related trauma, moving closer to psychedelics scientifically. find could fundamentally transform our understanding of the human mind when I go to Peru I will be accompanied by dr.

Robin Carhartt Harris, one of the first British researchers in more than 40 years to investigate the effects of psychedelics on the human mind, he and his colleagues discovered that psychedelics do not increase brain activity as previously thought, but instead decrease activity. in certain areas and to a greater extent. The lower it is, the greater the reported feelings of what is called ego dissolution or ego death. Your ego is your self-identity. It is the part that separates you from everything else. The part that creates narratives about the outside world and your history in it. When the ego dissolves, your sensations and feelings do not cease as when you are unconscious, but your attachment to your identity does and all that remains is naked perception.

Echo dissolution is a concept that I find difficult to understand, but people who take psychedelics say yes. It can be an extremely frightening experience, but also a deeply transformative one, making you feel more connected to others and to nature. Now I knew I could feel ego dissolution with ayahuasca, so to make sure I was ready I decided to talk to some experts first. Leaving for Peru dr. Carhart Harris traveled from Imperial College London to meet me. This will be one of the first times anyone has scanned a healthy person's brain with fMRI before and after ayahuasca.

Yes, it is quite pioneering work. Really what I have in mind right now is the intention. Yes. I heard that you should know why you are drinking ayahuasca. Yes, I would suggest you think of an emotional intention to make it emotional. It scares me much more. Yes, partly I think I'm quite happy and no. I don't want to ruin that right. I don't want to drink ayahuasca and then think, "Oh my god, I'm not close enough to my mom hmm or I don't show my wife that I appreciate her enough and now I feel terrible." There's something to be said for sitting with those thoughts, being aware, and in doing so, they become less threatening.

You look into their eyes and suddenly they reveal things to you and their fear seems to dissipate. I hope I can do it. Accept that while I'm surrounded by people who were filming me, you know, yeah, the most important thing is that intention to go in, you dive in and don't resist, don't resist, yeah, I think that's going to be really important. While I am on the trip, Robert has arranged for me to undergo a series of scientific tests to measure brain activity, behavioral differences and physiological changes in my brain. Today we are scanning microstrain with fMRI or fMRI imaging, allowing us to see the entire brain and how different parts connect and communicate with each other.

This way we can compare how Michael's brain may change before his ayahuasca experience. After the ayahuasca experience, I hope to see a brain network that is related to introspection become more connected after ayahuasca After meeting Robin I still felt some trepidation about my trip, but with my previous fMRI With the ayahuasca completed, it was time to go to Peru. The trip to the Refugio altiplano retreat involved a flight to Lima, Peru, a second flight to Iquitos, Peru. followed by a 90 minute boat ride down the Amazon River, it was a long trip and every minute I got closer meant it was that much harder to get back.

The Altiplano Retreat retreat located in a remote area of ​​the Amazon rainforest in the northern part of Peru would be an authentic setting for my ayahuasca experience, so Kelly, what does the word ayahuasca mean? the ayahuasca ceremony just a few hours away I met with José the shaman who would be my guide during this experience hello José EMU you are pleased a pleasure Lieutenant Sokka it is a welcome pleasure to the poetic black background where many people come to seek a change in their lives José What do you think about someone like me coming in, who is not part of your culture and participating in it in a way that maybe doesn't come from the same history, but I mean me, when I do it, for me there is no difference and for medicine?

It doesn't matter, this medicine just wants to improve your life and cure you the first night with our guests, we give them a very small medicinal dose to see how each person will react differently to the medicine and then tomorrow night I will turn it up a little . It was great to talk to José about what the ceremony will entail. I'm nervous about the emotional part and I'm nervous about the visions and feeling disconnected from the real world. Scientists know very little about how ayahuasca works, as its illegal status in many countries makes it difficult to study.

We know that its key ingredient is dimethyltryptamine or DMT, which is a hallucinogen believed to be produced naturally in the human brain. In small amounts, DMT can create psychoactive substances. It has effects by acting on certain receptors in the brain, but DMT is normally broken down quickly by enzymes in the brain. However, ayahuasca is actually a drink made from two plants, one contains DMT and the second contains a chemical inhibitor that blocks our body's ability to break down DMT. allowing the effects to last for hours dr. Carhart Harris gave me a series of tests to compare how I changed during this experience given that we are in Peru, we are in the jungle and you are drinking ayahuasca.

It has an authenticity that perhaps is sometimes lost when you give psychedelics in the laboratory environment, yes. Because we're going to do this after you drink ayahuasca, we need a control condition, so what I'm going to do now is ask you a short list of questions about your journey here and I want you to rate how you feel about these. questions on a scale here we have zero to nine, nine will strongly agree and zero will strongly disagree, so I learned more from my trip here to this retreat center about how past events have influenced my current behavior.

I got ideas during that two five six with different psychedelic drugs besides ayahuasca like LSD and psilocybin also DMT we found some pretty consistent changes in brain activity. We have seen that brain activity is richer and more varied, of course, we can't put an MRI scanner in the jungle, so the setup we have is practically the best possibility we have to do this, according to José, this bath of Flowers would protect me from evil spirits during the ceremony. Reow, I didn't believe in that stuff, but I was glad I could. do it because it was a symbol of Joseph's good intentions hello good evening the initial smaller dose ceremony was expected to last approximately two hours and the effects would begin after approximately 30 minutes we will begin your ceremony tonight asking God to guide us to give us knowledge and intelligence let's bless the medicine first the ayahuasca tasted like an earthy woman maybe also a little like fennel or something like that it's hard to say I've never tried anything like that after swallowing it my heart started to race it was the most nervous the whole person would be night DMT from the ayahuasca flowed into my blood and brain there was no turning back throughout the ceremony the shaman José sang icaros or chants that were meant to guide me through my spiritual experience the initial dose was meant to gently introduce me to the ayahuasca effects I started slowly and they were mild.

I started to feel like the room was rocking like a cradle. I was aware that the movement wasn't really happening, but it made me feel sick and nervously off balance. However, my imagination was more vivid images in my mind. They were more detailed but almost always under my control the ceremony ends when the shaman lights a candle. This comforted me because it was a sign that the effects would only weaken from here. Thanks Jose, there were also two moments where I was actually surprised that something I saw was like a very vivid bamboo that had been cut so that it was leaning and I remember saying, "wow, where did that come from?", but as soon as I saw it, I did, it disappeared.

One of the effects of ayahuasca is that it somehow creates a kind of chaos in the cortex that can lead to dreamlike visions. The second time I thought, oh yeah, nature and I feel more at one with everything and I imagined trees, but just in this ring and then all of a sudden. They were very close and they were fine here in my head, but I thought I didn't mean for that to happen. I think that's a good comparison to what I felt last night if you're in a sober state of mind. just imagine something like thinking about a pink elephant, well now an image probably came to mind, but not that super detailed, if I asked you a specific question like how many wrinkles its trunk has, you would probably have to imagine it again and then, basically, I filled in that detail, but under the effects of ayahuasca, those details were already in these imagined images, they seemed as real as an imagined image like a dream, but they came with more details and sometimes I would say maybe three. or four times things appeared that I didn't feel I had put there but as soon as I realized they disappeared I would like to look at the stars yes, let's do it the morning after my initial dose of ayahuasca my head was clearer and I wanted to talk about my experience with it shaman José.

You had a perfect presentation ceremony emotionally and personally. The only kind of revelations I had was that I was probably more worried than I needed to be beforehand and then I quit. That affects my behavior and now I'm not so dominated by what could happen or what has happened. I'm just in this moment right now, I feel much more open to mystical thinking. Yes, the demo system must be completed. He recommends that you complete. with more medicine tonight to help you complete the vision of yourself last night I had a third of a cup tonight a third is not worth three quarterswill be tonight's three quarters okay, it's weird, I had an intention Going in, I experienced that this is a very interesting scientific endeavor, but I'm fascinated by how I want it to have meaning.

I feel like I haven't reached that unity yet, tonight could be different. Mike was receiving the high dose tonight and the experience is very likely to differ substantially from the dose he took last night. I am interested in personal development. I know that's a big part of ayahuasca for a lot of people. I'm open to it, but I still feel some apprehension. for a higher dose tonight hello Michael, I'm here to pick you up for the ceremony - nights the highest dose ceremony was expected to last hours with stronger and more vivid hallucinations josè smoked a cigar made from a tobacco plant native to the Amazon called Lapacho smoke is believed to cleanse the body's energy

field

s and remove negativity from the ceremonial lodge.

The second ceremony included another shaman, Daniel, who drank and sprinkled floral water. I started to see that it's very geometric, bright squares like stacked like Aztec pyramids moving and I was traveling down through these like repeating, you know, fractal images of everything, too many things to really describe the musical notes and colors and shapes and squares then I started feeling like, oh my god, this is going faster and faster, this is too fast and it hasn't even been that long and then I felt like my body was covered with these blocks and I saw my body. from above and I felt like I was disappearing and that's what my heart started racing and I said mmm this was really bad this is not good a lot of emotions that I've always had were amplified so loud that I couldn't ignore them and I had to come up with ways to comfort myself so as not to be consumed by them and have a complete breakdown and panic attack and I resisted and managed to regain my calm by just saying I'm fine, I'm not going to die and everyone here I can help the visions were actually very vivid they didn't feel like were under my controls it really felt like they were just there a note of the song would occur and cause this image and that was quite scary because I was I wasn't like on a ride and I didn't know Robin.

Yes, now I can do the EEG. Yes, sure. I spent much of the ceremony anxious about having to do these tests with Robin. I don't know how to deal. With the lights coming back on and Robin talking to me and asking me questions, but the more I focused on why I'm feeling anxious, the more I realized that it was just me, it was about how I was feeling, but then I said, "I'm here to do". We're filming a show. Robin wants this data. Everyone will be happier if I do it, so I'll tell Robin that I'll do the best she can and that gave me the courage to do it, so being less selfish basically saved me from panicking. attack every time I read an article, if you could give me a number based on how you see yourself right now, okay, right now I see myself as extroverted and enthusiastic, okay, this is a big change for Michael, usually He is very extroverted and is in his previous response to ayahuasca.

I gave him a higher enthusiastic extrovert number five but now I see signs of withdrawal and introversion in him. I see myself right now as a quarrelsome critic to see myself now as a quarrelsome critic six the experience has led to a change in the way you see yourself is in some ways a reflection perhaps of a higher state of wakefulness, it is It is interesting to see these changes already and it is only halfway through the ceremony that the shaman Daniel sang in Shipibo, an indigenous language spoken by only five thousand people in the world.

I had always been frustrated by the People have difficulty explaining what it feels like to have a psychedelic experience and now I know why it is a different state of mind and trying to describe it is like trying to describe anger to someone who has never felt it. or what colors are like for a blind person. Person, oh man, I'd say five minutes into that first song I really panicked, my heart rate sped up and I actually touched my chest to make sure it wasn't beating as fast as I thought, but at that point it's possible. that I'm gone my body or something close to it before I stopped I was very afraid that I was disappearing Michael was describing what to me sounds like the quintessential ego dissolution the beginning that feeling that you are disappearing that your control over your mind and your body is giving way completely and he felt some resistance to that with a high enough dose that you just forced him into that space.

My feeling is that the intensity of his experience was just shy of that kind of profoundly transformative type of experience. I think he got a little bit of that, but I don't think he was the whole time I was there in that state of ego dissolution for a moment and it terrified me. He wishes I could have surrendered more fully, but I definitely tried it well, so last night's dose was much higher. Yes, the visions were very vivid and the feeling of strangeness was very strong. I would like to know what José was doing last night, what he was reacting to, what he saw in me, what plants he invoked and why they would do it.

I need to be happy, okay, stylist, Bobby, you were going through an intense ceremony, it was hard for you, he said he was very happy because he knew this was going to have a positive ending for you. I am very interested to know what the lessons were. I felt so small. and very humble but, honestly, I liked it. He wasn't afraid of her. I was glad to be reminded that I am weak. I feel like the experience amplified everything that worries me, far above what would be normal. but that made my fear and anxiety great enough that I could relax them.

The question is: will I remember to apply that or this type of jungle stay before leaving Peru? I completed one last round of testing with Robin, now put this up front. To collect data after my highest dose of ayahuasca. Thank you so much. I can't wait to see you back in Los Angeles and see what other thoughts you've had with these tests. Being here in the jungle is more organic. The cost. From that I feel like I've collected data that will tell us something important and meaningful about how psychedelics and ayahuasca work specifically on the mind in the brain.

After returning home to Los Angeles, I had my second MRI so Robin could see if there were any changes, although my ego dissolved for only a few brief moments, I was teetering on that edge throughout the ceremony and was eager to see. what it looked like in my brain Robin, welcome to my house, thanks for coming back, I can't wait. To see what results you got, yes, how did ayahuasca affect my brain? Okay, so we found something pretty interesting. We found that your brain activity became more complex, more diverse, richer, more varied under ayahuasca than baseline.

What does it mean to have more complex brain activity? In terms of how I experience things, I think we can understand it in terms of the richness of your imagination of your ideas. Trains of thought can be more varied, more changing, more dynamic. I definitely experienced that, yeah okay, you didn't just look at my brain through the surface but you got deep inside yeah, what did you notice there? He looks at a particular brain network called the default mode network that seems to relate to our sense of identity or ego that we've seen in other studies that during a psychedelic experience that network is dramatically compromised, shows a kind of disintegration and in fact that process relates quite strongly to the dissolution of people's ego and yet after the experience the network comes back as a kind of reset or a kind of reset of the network and what we find in your brain after ayahuasca , as predicted, your brain was reset, the network became more cohesive, more integrated, more strongly connected within itself.

Wow, yeah, you know, afterwards I really felt a lot more worried about my identity, my past, my future, yeah, you asked me a lot of questions. before and after about my knowledge of the experiences, yes how did they compare? We actually saw something really good in that data, so their knowledge scores for the trip, the lowest dose and then the highest dose with ayahuasca, and what we saw was that there was a gradual increase in their levels of perception or your initial score was 27 after the low dose experience, it was 39 after the high dose serum, it was 49, yes.

I definitely felt like the higher the dose of ayahuasca, the more I considered and learned about myself, yeah, well. Robin, I'm glad we were able to do an environmental study, so thank you for coming with me to Peru. I really appreciate it. I hope I have helped. It has been a great experience. I've learned a lot looking back on it now. I feel like my experience with ayahuasca was one of resistance rather than surrendering to its effects. I dove in and then got scared and told myself it's going to be okay. I'm not. I'm going to die but I should have gone in and gone through that said I learned a lot about how to control anxiety, that giving up control and selfishness can make it go away, but maybe in doing so I lost the opportunity to experience my mind operating without the controls and Dampening which I am so accustomed to that I feel more comfortable with scientists like Robin who have managed to break the strict legal restrictions surrounding these substances and have begun to discover what they can teach us about the mind.

Their findings so far are just the beginning. of our understanding of these powerful compounds, showing us how much we still have to learn about the mind and brain, and as always, thanks for watching.